Jun 8, 2017

Why Study Theosophical History

Esoteric Philosophy Invites Us
to Learn

the Lessons Hidden in Accumulated
Karma

Carlos Cardoso Aveline

History
contains the keys to building a
better future

Many think one should forget
about the history of the theosophical movement altogether. As one discovers
Theosophy, they say, one has more than a lifetime task in understanding and
living up to the wisdom taught in works like “Isis Unveiled”, “The Secret
Doctrine”, and others. Not to mention hundreds of classical and modern thinkers
like Plato and Fromm, Kabir and Gibran, Confucius, Lao-tzu and Paracelsus.

Why should one then also have
to study the history of the
theosophical movement, with its few, poor victories and many sad failures? Would
it not be a diversion and a loss of time?

Not at all.

Serving mankind and playing an
active role in the planetary evolution is an essential part of Occult learning.
The theosophical project constitutes the main instrument through which Theosophists
can do that. One needs to know its history, in order to strengthen it as a practical tool to help mankind grow in
discernment. The movement is also a refuge for one’s soul: it must be observed
and understood as such.

The
Community of Learners

The Eastern idea of “three
jewels” or “three refuges” (Triratna in Sanskrit) is thoroughly valid in
Theosophy.

Since Life is highly probationary,
students need some sort of refuge. The Law of Impermanence applies to every
transitory aspect of life, and that includes one’s own lower self. Therefore
the truth-seeker must search for refuge from transient things - gross and
subtle - in That which is permanent. Learning
to do so is a long-term process which coincides with the unfolding of “lay
discipleship”.

The soul of the learner will then say, in these or other words:

1) I take refuge in the
Teachers of Divine Wisdom (or Buddhas);

2) I take refuge in the
Teaching and the Law (or Dharma); and

3) I take refuge in the
mutual-help process of co-discipleship (or Sangha).

These are the refuges.

The theosophical sangha is really located not in any
physical place but in some subtle patterns or “way of life”.

In order for the student to
take refuge in such inner sangha, he
needs to understand the history or accumulated karma of the movement in the
world. He has to see in what levels of consciousness it really exists, and
understand its present and future opportunities at various aspects of reality.

Theosophy teaches that it is a
loss of energy to try and make a separate
search for truth. Individual independence has to be compensated by mutual help
and solidarity. As a result, it is not correct to wash our hands Pilate-like
with regard to the destiny of the theosophical movement.

It is by the second refuge, in
the teaching, and the third refuge, in the sangha,
that we can be better able to take the first refuge, in the inner guidance or
the teacher.

The three elements are
interdependent. One must know what is and what is not the real teaching, so
that one can know what is, and what is not, the real sangha - and how to find the true guidance or inner Master.

History
as a Science

History is the science or
study of accumulated experience, and experience
is the same as Karma.

In the first paragraph of the
famous Letter 10, in “Mahatma Letters”, an Adept-Teacher defines Occult Science
as the study of the causes by their consequences, and of the consequences by
their causes. History itself can be well defined in exactly the same words as
these.

The study of History is
therefore but the study of the Karmic Law as it works along time. On the other
hand, historical knowledge also helps people to prepare a better future. Knowing
one’s past trajectory enables one to perceive one’s highest dharma, both
individually and collectively as a movement.

There is nothing entirely new,
or entirely old, under the Sun. Everything that was, will be, says Ecclesiastes: 1.

In order to know more about
the future, one must study the past and present circumstances from the viewpoint
of our higher potentialities - individual and collective.

Our future is far from being
an “empty page”. If one studies the law of the cycles, one sees that the past
history or accumulated experience contains the seeds of every future progress. It
also contains the seeds of future mistakes, which one must try to avoid from
now. Past, present and future are but one continuous, living process in the
eyes of the Occultist. As a result of this, we must grow beyond the shallow
attitude of those who simply deny past events.

Discerning
Right and Wrong

As one studies History, one
finds a long series of illusions and disillusionments, of search for truth and
collective deceptions.

History allows us to
understand the multidimensional process of probation and test through which the
movement has grown since its inception in September 1875. The movement is a
magnetic field. Its substance is the process of collective learning and effort.
It evolves in a constant struggle against collective and individual
self-delusion.

History contains the keys to building a better future.

There are of course
conflicting viewpoints as to the evolution of the movement. No one is the sole
proprietor of truth, and the original theosophy never recommended to abandon
truth in order to avoid discussion. Honest debate helps one to learn. This is
clear. One should not argue for the sake of argument, or out of personality
motives. In Occultism, everything depends on the altruism and generosity ofintentions.
H.P. Blavatsky described thus the right attitude of a whole-hearted theosophist:

“Ready to lay down our life
any day for THEOSOPHY - that great cause of the Universal Brotherhood for which
we live and breathe - and willing to shield, if need be, every theosophist with
our own body, we yet denounce as openly and as virulently the distortion of the
original lines upon which the Theosophical Society was primarily built, and the
gradual loosening and the undermining of the original system by the sophistry
of many of its highest officers.” [1]

Politics is often a plague.

People who sacrifice sincerity
or actual facts for the sake of “political correctness” are renouncing
Theosophy and abandoning the search for truth. They reject the real teaching so
that they can better possess its outer and empty shell. Naïve souls follow the
opposite of the lesson given in Matthew 13: 24-30, as they carefully burn the
wheat and put the weeds in their barn, because this is the easy thing to do.

Self-responsible individuals recognize
that “difficulties” are teachers. Life kindly puts obstacles before us, lest we
forget to learn the sacred lessons hidden in them.

We all have much to learn from
our accumulated experience and mistakes. One example is this, that in order to
have the moral authority to perform the task of criticizing dogmatic religions,
we must do our own homework first. This
previous condition can’t be left
aside, and HPB wrote:

“We bear our Karma for our
lack of humility during the early days of the Theosophical Society; for our
favourite aphorism: ‘See, how these Christians love each other’ has now to be
paraphrased daily and almost hourly, into: ‘Behold, how our Theosophists love
each other.’ And we tremble at the thought that, unless many of our ways and
customs, in the Theosophical Society at large, are amended or done away with, [we] will one day have to expose many a
blot on our own scutcheon - e.g.,
worship of Self, uncharitableness, and sacrificing to one’s personal vanity the
welfare of other Theosophists - more ‘fiercely’ than it has ever denounced the
various shams and abuses of power in state Churches and Modern Society.” [2]

The
Original Project

There is plenty of evidence that
the original programme of the
movement included the honest study and frank discussion of its own work, its
own mistakes, and the lessons it must learn decade after decade, century after
century.

H.P.B. was entirely devoted to
the building of the theosophical movement, and this meant (and still means) a
lot of organizational work.

Her letters to A.P. Sinnett
and her many articles on the movement deserve study. The theosophical effort is
also intensely discussed in the book “The Key to Theosophy”. By her actions and
life-example, H.P.B. teaches the direct interdependence of the three elements
of the Triratna which we have seen before.

Throughout the “Mahatma
Letters to A.P. Sinnett”, one finds a frank discussion of the most difficult
challenges before the theosophical movement.

As long as she lived, H.P.B.
had before her mind a broad view of the past and future of the movement, of the
planet, and of humanity. Every student of theosophy is invited to share the
same standpoint.

There is no reason for
theosophists of any century to think they will be effective unless they have a
notion of the process by which a visible nucleus of Brotherhood is being built
since 1875.

The history of the movement is
the story of the conflicting relationship between the Eye Doctrine and the
Heart Doctrine within the theosophical “sangha”.
This is no short term action. It is part of the preparation for the sixth
sub-race of the fifth race. The seed was planted in the 1875-1891 period. In the
twentieth century, it had to start germinating by its own merits. In the
present century, as in the following ones, renewed efforts are needed.

The real movement has, as
H.P.B. wrote of each individual student, to “continually burst through its
confining shell or encasement, and such a disruption must also be accompanied
by pain, not physical but mental and intellectual”. [3]

The theosophical seedlings
must make the heart doctrine burst through the eye-doctrine or
pseudo-theosophical shell, in order to come out into fresh air and establish a
direct contact with the inspiring energy sent by the Sun.

The inner vitality of the
movement at any given time is directly linked to the amount and accuracy of its
historical consciousness, and to the clarity of the knowledge about its purpose.